The Best for Last an Iolausian 'futurecast' pt 1
by Gabrielle Baer
Summary: Hercules finally remarries, on Olympus, but not until his best friend is there to help him keep his word after 100 years
1. Chapter 1

Best for Last by Rielle

Disclaimer: I want to state clearly and for the record that my muse  
simply would not leave me alone until I put this down into pixels. On that  
basis, and with the caveat that it is only meant to be enjoyed ... I hope ...  
not take seriously, and most especially as only the 'sincerest form of  
flattery' to one of my favorite and first-reads amongst HtLj ff let me offer this  
ficlet:

**Part One**  
"If I could be as young and strong as you fellows, again, but go on  
knowing what I know now ... " Iolaus laughed, shaking his head at the leaders  
amongst the small army that had somewhat arrogantly named itself 'The Sons of  
Hercules'.

"You'd still make a fool of yourself trying to lead these young fools  
into another battle." a familiar, clear voice interrupted. "And if I had even  
one dinar for every time I've heard you say that in the past 100 years or so

"Her... Hercules!" Iolaus cried out in real joy, and then began to cough  
again, his lungs feeling like lead balloons, too heavy to fill with  
breath. As he had so many times before the demigod caught his friend trying to  
sit up and held him in a sitting pose until the wracking cough faded again.

"Haven't you had just about enough of this aging-nonsense?" the son of  
Zeus demanded. He was smiling at the hunter, but his wide blue eyes were  
shining with sorrow at the mortal's obvious illness.

"Well, yeah, buddy, but as we used to say ... consider the alternative."  
Iolaus managed to whisper back when his ability to breathe and speak at  
the same time returned.

"I have, Iolaus and enough is enough! You're coming with me, now. These  
lads are grown, some of them have sons of their own, now ... They'll do just  
fine. C'mon, then."

"Wait, you have considered, and I'm coming with you and these lads ...  
Herc, you asked me to look out for them. I'm doing my best to keep my word,  
where in Hades do you want me to go now?"

"Well, we have a quick stop or two to make in Elysium and then you're  
coming back to Olympus with me. We aren't going anywhere near Hades, unless he  
decides to come to the party that's going to be held, there."

"Wait ... Elysium ... a quick stop ... back to Olympus ... why? You've  
been up on Olympus, doing whatever full gods do up there almost 75 years,  
Herc. unless I totally lost track of time. Stop, for a moment and tell me what  
I'm going to Olympus for, a party? No offense, but I'm sure your .. family  
can celebrate without me, just fine."

"It has been a hundred years, Iolaus. And maybe they can, but I can't.  
I'm ... being married ... Iolaus ... I need you there. C'mon, you came the  
first time, but almost missed the second ... Third times a charm, they say.  
Besides which, before we even get into that, I guess I forgot to mention :

You're becoming an immortal, my friend. "

Before Iolaus could even think what that would mean or how to respond,  
the air about himself and his life long friend brightened fiercely for a  
moment and the solid earth fell away beneath his feet.

After that, events and surprises came thick and fast, too fast for the  
hunter to take in, at first. Clearly, they were first in Elysium, being happily  
greeted by dozens of friends, and a handful of former foes, as well.  
Amazon queens and warrior women, beloved kings and their gently laughing  
consorts surrounded the heroes, welcoming them warmly. The news of Olympian  
nuptials soon to be held was shared and Hercules endured a great deal of friendly  
hazing on the subject before he took Alcmene, Jason and Iolaus off to  
one quieter corner to explain what was about to happen on the mountain that  
dominated Elysium even as it did the living world below.

"It will be more like concluding a peace treaty than celebrating a  
wedding."

Hercules told his family. "Zeus finally got Hera to concede on certain  
issues, but her 'price' is that I wed one of her daughters ... No, not  
one of my full sisters, for the gods sake, that sort of thing went out with  
their generation.

This is a half-mortal woman, I think, I've never met her and she's never been powerful

 enough to get involved with the kind of trouble making the rest of the family likes so well.

I've never seen her. Hera had her hidden away for a long time, because it seems Zeus is just

as jealous of her affairs as she always has been of his. Her name, I think, is Hebe,  
Hermes says she very much the quiet type, You know, I almost feel sorry for  
her. This is nothing less than a political marriage. No one asked the girl,  
and no one asked me."

"Then, Hercules, why did you agree?" Iolaus insisted, feeling some of his  
old curiosity return with the ease and health Elysium brought. "You're a full  
god, now. They can't kill you and they surely must know they couldn't  
change your mind now anymore than they could while we were fighting them  
together. Tell them to take their arranged marriage and, well you get my meaning.  
Take me with you and we'll fight the lot of them one more time! It will be  
great! It will be the best time I've had in 100 years! C'mon!"

Hercules shook his head no. "I can't do that, Iolaus. I gave Zeus my  
word. And even if he never once kept his vows and promises, by all the gods, I  
intend to keep mine!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

Not at all satisfied with his partner's ambling pace, Hercules cut short  
this particular journey by lifting Iolaus bodily and bringing him down to  
where a few friends, and a few gods and immortals waiting. "We haven't got all  
day for this, Iolaus, at least, not yet!"

" ... not yet ... that's a good one, Herc." Iolaus giggled.

"Who were you talking to, over there? I don't mean Ares. Who was the  
girl?" the son of Alcmene demanded to know.

Now it was Iolaus' turn to be amazed. "You mean you really don't ... You  
really haven't seen her at all?"

"If you mean by that my prospective bride, no." Hercules grumbled. "That  
was Hera's major condition and I agreed to it ... like I said before, to seal  
the peace."

"But you're none too happy about it. I can see that. Look, my friend, I  
understand you agreed to this, but didn't they tell you anything about  
this young woman?"

"Plenty. Hera hid her away as a baby. She says Zeus was as close to being  
crazy at the time as she's ever seen him. That's part of the reason she  
had an affair with some petty king somewhere near Sparta, and most of the  
reason, Hera says, she left the infant with the midwives, there ... to keep the  
child safe.

She told the king to keep the child hidden, even from her, from  
Hera, change her name, move her about the countryside ... all the usual tricks  
of the trade. He more than took Hera at her word. The girl grew up believing  
herself a mortal, and that her mother died in childbirth. She was a  
woman grown before Hera knew of her again, with children of her own.

 She had a gift for keeping hearth fires alive ... but otherwise no idea that

she was special, different, much less a half goddess. And being Hera's daughter  
by a mortal, she's no kin to me ... not that that sort of thing bothers  
most Olympians." Hercules sighed and sat down next to his best friend.

"It would bother you, buddy. A lot."

"Anyway, the wedding feast comes after we take care of you becoming  
immortal. I told Zeus, and the others, you had proved yourself a thousand times  
more worthy of a reward like this than half the immortals I could name! "

"Callisto, for example?" Iolaus laughed.

"Callisto, for example." Hercules gave his friend the first genuine smile  
the hunter had seen since coming back up the mountain.

"Then let's get this over with!" Iolaus demanded. "We've got a wedding to  
celebrate, so I hear.." The two heroes walked a bit further down the  
hall, to where Jason, Alcmene and a handful of friends waited on them. In another  
moment, several priestesses and priests of Hera and Zeus, those whose  
devotion had won them eternity on Olympus joined the group.

"What do we have to do?" Hercules demanded. "And I don't want to hear  
about any trials, or troubles or puzzles to solve beforehand."

"Yeah, " Iolaus agreed, "been there, done that, you might say."

"No trials. Just a brief ritual. "the chief priestess promised, looking  
Iolaus over. "Hunter, you are, or have been at some point dedicated to  
Artemis, the Huntress."

"Yes, around the last time through, I guess, she saw fit to claim me."

"And while you remain mortal, I still do." the Huntress answered,  
appearing in the garb of an Amazon, through a shower of green and silver light.  
"And as you have been mine, I preside. Stand before me, Iolaus of Thebes and  
of Corinth, Iolaus of Attica and Macedon, Iolaus of Greece and Thrace and  
Sumer, and the East. And stand still, you would be no hunter, if you didn't know  
how to do that"

Smiling, but feeling some of the Huntress' solemnity flow through him.  
Iolaus nodded and stood as still as if he watched a big horn ram grazing a yard  
away. Taking a deep breath, he met the Huntress-Goddess gaze, "Mortal or  
immortal, Lady Huntress, I will be yours to claim."

"That is the right and honorable way to respond, Iolaus. I expected  
nothing less. No, I will not have you bowing. It is not in your nature. Hold out  
your hands to me. Cup them together, as closely as you may."

Obeying, Iolaus found himself holding a cup rough woven of stems,  
branches and leaves, the kind he might fashion himself to catch water out of a  
lake, a waterfall or mountain stream. Only with this being Olympus, he couldn't  
help noting, this 'cup' was washed with silver and filled with a shining fluid  
that gave back the light and shadows above it like no pool he'd ever  
seen. And this the Huntress gazed into deeply like any of her servants scrying  
in a pool, a stream or any kind of mirror.

"A village of amazons, a she-demon, an indestructible warrior woman, no,  
two of them...that's four and then truly the ugliest jumped-up Anatolian by  
way of Sumer wannabegod fire demons I've ever seen!" one of Artemis'  
priestesses murmured to the Huntress.

"By my count, that's five good solid hits ... Never mind all the  
try-outs." Ares, much to Iolaus' surprise joined them to add his opinion.

"That's the problem right there. Any one of those should have done the deed. Why  
didn't someone let us know about this little glitch decades ago?"

"Little glitch?" Iolaus finally heard himself asking. "What do you mean?  
Is there something keeping me from becoming immortal? Not that I'm  
particularly interested, but it is Herc's condition on his upcoming nuptials."

Artemis shook her head of dark-red, silver shot hair at the hunter. "We  
didn't know. I didn't know. You were dedicated to me as a boy, and I  
didn't know. You're exactly right, Iolaus. There is something keeping me  
from making you immortal. Something I must say none of us expected. The Fates  
have decided the issue."

"Wait just a ... wait!" Hercules interjected. "Artemis, what's going on?"  
I gave my word on this condition."

"Well, then you'll have to go find the titans, Rhea, possibly or great  
grandmother Gaia, perhaps. One of them must have already put this into  
play, aeons ago. We can't make Iolaus immortal now."

"But why?" the heroes demanded together.

"Because my dear brother, and my dearest hunter, Iolaus already is  
immortal. The problem that came in, each of these times it seemed so  
certain he had died ... was that no one in the living world, including Iolaus  
himself, and no one on Olympus, including Zeus knew. Iolaus of Corinth  
and Thebes, of Sparta and Attica, of Sumer and the East ... You were, you  
have been and you always will be immortal. It's just as simple as this: Iolaus  
athanatos esti."

"Who knew?" Iolaus and Hercules turned to each other to ask, each man  
unsure whether to scream or laugh at the sheer folly of the warlords, thieves,  
monsters and other trouble makers who'd done their level best over  
something like 100 years to change this one certainty... and so they went on.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three** thanks to Skylark's flattering insistence J

Oh joy oh rapture! Iolaus thought, with no mirth at all in his mind or on  
his face. The last time I was this bored and this restless I thought I was  
going to be stuck with ... I mean honored by being part of 'The Light' for  
eternity! And just when I thought I was on my way to Elysium to be with  
Anya and the lad and well, a lot of our friends ... Herc comes down the  
mountain with the notion that I should take on immortality!

Who asked him? Who asked for this? The hunter let his gaze sweep over the  
huge hall, being prepared for a wedding feast among the gods. I know why  
I'm here, Herc, cos you, mortal, half god or immortal god are scared out of  
your woven leather trousers at the idea of wedding a mortal or half mortal  
woman you don't know from Gaia and all this to stop yet another war between  
Zeus and Hera?

"Have you ever been through a war between Zeus and Hera when they were  
going full tilt?" Hephaestus asked Iolaus, after appearing in a shower of  
sparks.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. I was keeping my butt and a certain grandchild  
of theirs out of the way a few decades back when the mighty ones couldn't  
decide what to do with an eight year old demigod! They ..."

"I heard about it, Iolaus ... Evander loves telling that story." the  
forge-god stopped him. And you're really only here on Hercules' account.  
He made two conditions of his own when this marriage of dis-convenience was  
announced. One, that he would not ever force himself on Hera's daughter,  
she'll have to be completely willing before he lays a hand on her. And  
two, that you'd be up here, suitably rewarded for your loyalty and friendship  
life long, to help him make certain no one on this side of the family made any  
trouble."

"Hephy, " Aphrodite giggled. "Curly's already heard all that. The problem  
isn't why he's here. The problem is the gods have pestered Herc and him  
so many times it has got to be majorly old news by now. Besides, he doesn't  
know that .."

"Dite would you please close it? Iolaus and your brother's other guests  
know all they need to know. That's another one of the conditions, or did you  
forget? We're not discussing the marriage arrangements with mortals,  
immortals or other beings. No matter how fond we may be of them!"  
Hephaestus growled.

"He's soooo cute when he's just the least bit jealous, isn't he?"  
Aphrodite asked Iolaus, who was keeping silent only because he suddenly remembered  
a lesson from Academy days ... something about discretion and courage.  
Giving the Goddess of Love a quick smile and an absolutely non committal shrug,  
Iolaus hurried away from the pair. They were completely involved with  
each other by the time he looked back again. No surprises there. Considering  
what he'd heard, though, the hunter knew he wasn't going to keep from asking  
Hercules. But concentrating on how he'd ask the demigod the questions  
that now filled his thoughts, Iolaus almost walked into a young woman with a  
hearth-basket resting on one slender hip,

"I'm sorry!" he immediately offered, reaching to help her balance the  
warm, tightly covered object again. "Can I carry that for you?"

Lifting her gaze, bright as spring grass, and shaking back a head full of  
tawny-gold curls she shook her head. "No, Mother says I have to practice  
every day. I'm ... I'm to be a full goddess, now ... Goddess of the  
Hearth, Mother says. Sculptors will want to do likenesses of me, "

"Mother says." Iolaus finished for her, and smiled. "Then, unless I'm  
mistaken, you're soon to be married to my very best friend. My name is  
Iolaus and your name is "but shock closed his throat as he truly looked at her  
for the first time.

"Hebe, my name is Hebe." the half-goddess she finished for him, but with  
a very determined tone. "I'm delighted to meet the mortal who's befriended  
my husband to be for so many years. It couldn't have been easy, being a  
target for some of my brothers and sisters and even ... I guess for my Mother  
... just because you gave a care for Zeus' son. and he gave a care for you.  
She has always had a quick temper and an unforgiving nature, Mother says.  
She's trying to curb both, this millenia, anyway, that is her new-aeon  
resolution, "

"Hera says." Iolaus managed. "But you ... you must know. "

"I know what its like to live through a war in heaven, Iolaus. I know how  
mortals and immortals suffer when those go on, century after century. I  
know that my place here is to make peace, to make a peace offering, I guess  
some would say, to be a peace offering. How could I, being who and what I am  
ask anything more than that? How could anyone ask me to help create peace on

their hearths, if I can' t help create peace amongst the gods?

It is clearly what the Fates intended for me, many, many decades ago ...

 but with being hidden from Zeus hidden with my father's folk far from where anyone

would know me, hidden from my own future, all of my own future, Iolaus,

not just the part that's already in the past. Knowing all that now,

what else can I do and what more could I possibly want to do?"

"No more, I suppose." Iolaus muttered, sitting down because suddenly his  
legs didn't want to support his torso any longer. "Except to let the one  
person in the living world or out of it, the one person whose heart will be "

"NO!" the woman cried out. "Iolaus, do you truly want to see the gods at  
war? Haven't you by now, after 100 years had your fill of war? That was the  
one condition Zeus and Hera and Hercules managed to agree on. That he would  
wed her daughter without even one meeting, sight unseen, as a matter of  
honor and well, ancient tradition, really. Or have you come up to Olympus to  
take Ares' place? As fine a warrior as you are and have been, I can't and I  
don't believe that of you. You're no lover of war, a good fight for a good  
reason, surely, but not War!"

"Speak my name and I appear, Fair One!" Ares laughed, stepping into sight  
in a blaze of black and red light. "Ares, god of War, at your service, sis.  
Is this wannabe annoying you? I could toss him off Olympus. I've done it  
before, just ask him."

"He's done it before." Iolaus agreed, frowning at the dark god. "Meant to  
kill me more than once, too. Just didn't seem to ever get that right, did  
you, Ares? Well, all that's gone now, I'm about to become immortal, you  
know. A reward, you might say, for never knuckling under to bullies and liars  
and jumped up pieces of work like "

"Iolaus!" Hercules called from down the long hall. "C'mon, you're going  
to be late for your immortality!"

"Late for my immortality. Did you hear that, Ares? Well, we can't have  
that." Iolaus grinned, turning back to the willowy young woman with the glowing

hearth-basket comfortably balanced against one hip. "I'll see you, later. Go carefully,  
okay?"

"I will. But Iolaus, I have another favor to ask."

"Anything at all ... Hebe."

"Will you be the one to 'give me' to Hercules? I have no relatives up  
here, not on my father's side of the family. I'm sure ... everyone would be  
grateful, if you could."

"Nothing would please me more, Hebe." Iolaus agreed at once. "You get  
ready, I'll see you there. I think, no, I know this is the best Solstice gift  
the Big Guy has had in a very, very long time."

"Solstice was yesterday, Iolaus." she gently reminded him.

"Maybe so, but that's not going to matter a fig. Don't you agree, Ares?"

"Are you two going to keep that up all day? If so, I'm outa here!" Ares declared.

And so he was.

"Hard guy to please ... but you do tend to miss him when he stays away."  
Iolaus smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four**  
A few hours later, Iolaus took the young half-goddess' arm again and  
turned to face the assembled gods, goddesses, immortals and mortals, including  
his life long companion and friend.

"He won't be angry, Iolaus, will he?"

"He won't. Not until he's able to think and breathe all at the same time  
again, anyway. Figure the gods to make this condition on the whole  
scheme. You look completely fantastic, I almost forgot to say ... Hebe."

"When you come to supper, one evening soon, you don't have to use ..."

"But I'd better be careful 'in public' This is supposed to be a marriage  
of non-convenience, as Hephaestus said. You'd better look a little more  
glum, yourself." the hunter teased her.

"I don't know if I can. I don't know when I've been this happy,  
excepting, well, once, well, no twice, well ... no I can't count out "

"Never mind, De. We're almost there. He can't see your face, yet ... "  
Iolaus whispered, "Now he can." feeling joyous tears in the back of his own  
throat. Never in a hundred years had he expected to be able to bring Hercules a  
gift like this. And never in nearly a hundred years had he seen such a look of  
confusion, shock, wide eyed wonder and joy on the face of Zeus' son,"

"We're a day late for Solstice, my friend. But we figured you'd think  
this was well worth the waiting. You've pledged to wed this daughter of Hera  
and a mortal king, Hercules. To seal a peace in heaven. To protect mortals and  
immortals alike from another war between the gods. I was asked to bring  
as your bride, Hebe, goddess of the hearth, the daughter of Hera, will you  
accept her from my hands, and honor your vow?"

"From your hands, my friend, I surely will ... but we'll talk ...afterwards.  
And let it be known on Olympus, as it should have been long before now,  
that this son of Zeus keeps all his vows, no matter when, no matter where,  
no matter why they were made. I ... I am honored, Lady Hebe. And I take you  
as my bride, forever."

"I am honored, Hercules, and I take you as my husband, forever." Hebe  
smiled, trembling, and carefully holding back the grin she knew he would take to  
heart. "May our bond be a bond between gods, and between Olympus and the  
living world, as well. Peace and warmth are my gifts. Love and peace at  
every hearth is my only desire."

Another beginning.


End file.
